The Seven Markets (34 page)

The other fliers reformed their V-formation, minus one member. Instead of scattering, now they bore down on her, guns blazing, dogging her at every turn.

Cutter dug his feet in to get her attention. “Head for the barrier. Turn to your right when you’re close enough to touch it. Then skirt the edge as close as you can.”

She nodded, thrashing her tail as she flew. The Market’s outer edge, the hazy barrier, was not far away. She banked hard when she came upon it and held her wings out, letting herself glide right along the borderline. The fliers’ shots followed closely behind, singeing her tail more than once.

“Keep going,” he said. “You’ve got it. Just there . . . ha!”

A crackle of something like lightning shot across the barrier as one of the fliers edged too close, brushing up against it with a wing or one of his rear stabilizers. Ellie heard a surprised scream and then nothing else.

“Four to one. Odds are getting better. Okay, hold on, let’s see—can you make for those trees?”

She nodded, changing course immediately. The trees Cutter wanted her to fly at were short, young things, hardly more than saplings. Much too small to provide her any cover. Much too frail for her to tear out of the ground and use as weapons. Still, she trusted his instincts and headed for them, only to be confused when Cutter shouted, “NOW!” a few seconds before they reached the trees. Ellie passed overhead unsure of what it was she was meant to have done.

“What was that?” he said, tugging on her line, guiding her away from a fresh volley of pursuing fire.

“What was what? You didn’t tell me anything to do!”

“I thought it was obvious—you were supposed to breathe fire onto the trees. We could have used the smoke to hide. It would have played merry hob with their sensors and such.”

“I can’t breathe fire.”

“You what?”

“I can’t,” she said.

“Have you tried? What kind of dragon are you?”

“A temporary one, I’m afraid.”

Cutter swore. “So you
might
be able to breathe fire, then?”

“I don’t know—I’ve never tried.”

She felt him rise from his crouching position on her back. “Maybe this would be a good opportunity, no?”

Fire. How was she supposed to breathe fire? Flying she’d practiced, taking to the sky every chance she had. But fire was different. No one taught you how to do that trick, and it wasn’t the sort of thing you worked on in the mirror. What if she succeeded and set the entire meadow ablaze? What if she burned down the entire Market?

Ellie circled around again, dodging and weaving to avoid all but the most glancing of blows. Her wings hissed smoke from the fliers’ attacks, reminding her that in this form she was as vulnerable to iron as her passenger.

She picked a likely couple of trees and aimed herself on a course that would bring her directly overhead. She sucked in a great breath and, as she flew overhead, blew it all out in a great, heaving rush.

The trees did not catch fire. She was strong enough to create a good, strong wind, but nothing more.

“Don’t talk nice to them—set them on fire! Think
fire! Fire! Fire!
”

Ellie inhaled again, but this time she held it. She picked a tree off in the distance and imagined it bursting into flames. There was a roaring furnace within her breast, and if she could just unleash it she could end this misguided war in a matter of minutes. She visualized fire exploding from her mouth, felt a rumbling in her belly. Zooming low, weaving back and forth to evade the fliers’ shots, she dropped and, spreading her wings wide, came to a hovering stop just feet from the tree she’d selected.

“Atta girl,” Cutter said, patting her shoulder.

Ellie spat at the tree; a great glob of dark saliva coated it from top to bottom. It curled the hairs inside her nostrils with its terrible, steaming reek. She hung there, beating her wings, hoping the tree might spontaneously combust, until a burning sensation peppered her back. The fliers. She’d remained stationary too long and they were opening up on her.

Their shots stung, but it was the iron insinuating itself into the skin beneath her scales that caused the real pain. Ellie folded her wings in, dropping to the ground as their shots whistled harmlessly overhead. She bounded off into another small grove of trees, crouching with her belly in the grass, hoping to buy a second to collect herself before taking to the air once more.

“Fire? Psh!”

Cutter sounded elated at her failure to breathe fire. She turned to face him.

He patted her shoulder again, digging his feet in. “Okay, I want you to fly straight up, fast as you can. Let them get as close as they can and then I want you to take ’em down, okay?”

“Take them down? How? You saw, didn’t you? My ‘fire’ is just a great black glob of stink. Blech.”

“Stink? Ellie, show me the tree.”

She searched for it. There was no sign, only a dark, rancid puddle where it had been. It roiled and bubbled, eating away at the ground and surrounding grasses, but did not appear to be spreading beyond where she’d spat.

“Acid, Ellie. I’ve heard stories, but I’ve never seen a spitter before. Much worse than fire. Let’s go.”

She prowled through the trees, tracking the fliers overhead. Her natural coloration made her practically invisible beneath the shadow of the trees. A flier passed directly overhead, close enough that she was tempted to launch up and snatch him right out of the air. For a moment she saw his face through the layers of golden armor and recognized him from training.

It was so long ago, but still oddly prominent in her memories. Their years of preparation and research, plotting the best way to gain control of the Market, the most effective plan for taking the Prince out of action. How she had hungered for her revenge. It had consumed her every waking moment. By necessity, she’d told herself, but was she here today to make these fools pay for her weakness? She’d told herself she was returning to set things right. To save the Market, to even save the Prince. What was the point if she waded through the blood of these soldiers to get there?

“No. Already too many have fallen.”

“What?”

“We just need to stall, Cutter. These men don’t need to die. Not like that.”

“Stall? Ellie, what are we stalling for?”

Before she could answer, blinding light pierced the darkness. One of the fliers had spotted them though the canopy. Ellie reacted without thinking, darting away a heartbeat before tracers of gold smoke tore through the trees that had protected them. She bounded through the shadows, picking up speed, and when she broke out once more into the daylight, her wings were already spread.

They surrounded her, cannons blazing, dogging her no matter which way she flew. Lashing out with her tail, Ellie bashed one of the attackers and knocked him clear out of the sky. Another was near enough for her claws so she raked at him, hoping to drag him from his craft. It would be worth the punishment she was taking if she could narrow the odds so there were only two of them left to fight.

“Ellie, fly!”

She glanced up and saw another dozen of the fliers bearing down on her position. From the east, another dozen, and still more from the north and south. Reinforcements. Hart had let the original six get her measure, and now he was moving in for the kill.

“Fly, dammit!”

She swept her wings in a great swath, clearing the space around her. The fliers were too near the ground for her to dip under them, so she climbed up, out of their killing box. They were converging at her from every direction. Only the space directly overhead was clear.

“Go go go!”

Up, into the sky, higher and higher. The triple suns blazed overhead, spectators in this oldest of games. How could she hope to survive with so many foes coming for her? It felt as if hours had passed since she’d wished her parents luck in their own endeavor, adrenaline drawing time long and thin like the blade of a knife. How long had it actually been? Could they have run into some difficulty of their own?

Cutter yanked hard on his line, dragging her away from a torrent of shots. The new fliers were everywhere, swarming around her in a cloud of golden light.

“You didn’t tell me he had more than six of these buggers!”

“He has as many as he wants,” Ellie said, ignoring the now-constant burn of their shots against her scales and wings. “It’s the armor, it’s—it’s modular. I just didn’t think . . .”

She couldn’t talk any more. It was taking all her concentration to swoop and dive, to roll and twist out of the way of Hart’s attackers. There seemed to be no reason or pattern to their tactics. It was a free-for-all. Ellie remembered there had only been a handful of soldiers capable of piloting the fliers with any competence. Those must have been the original six who’d opened the pursuit. He was throwing these new ones at her in a mass, hoping their sheer numbers would bring her down.

Ellie tore off toward the Market wall, changing course at the last second. The barrier erupted with crooked bursts of light as the inexperienced pilots careened into it head-on. If the originals had forgotten to tell the newbies about the Market’s barrier, they were doing it now. She would not get away with that trick a third time today.

No matter how she flew, high or low, weaving about or straight as an arrow, they were on her. There were simply too many to evade. She stole a glance back toward the Market proper, but there was a wall of them hovering in place. At least fifty more fliers hanging back, blocking her retreat.

“Any thoughts?”

Cutter grunted in pain. “Just keep doing what you’re doing. We’ll hold out as long as we can. Stalling, right?”

She collided with a flier, found herself face-to-face with him for a prolonged beat as the two of them turned midair. The soldier inside couldn’t have been more than twenty years old. He looked terrified. She seized his wings, swinging him around as they fell, her claws burning. Another flier dipped in too close and she bashed one with the other.

“I can’t keep this up forever!”

“Hang in there, you’re doing great, Ellie. Just hang in there.”

She was too low. The fliers came in close, driving her with their endless stream of golden fire. She dodged as well as she could, but one group forced her into the sightline of another. Her entire body burned as they forced her slowly but surely to the ground.

“Ellie! Ellie! It’s Tara, come in!”

“Mama?” she said, still unable to use her mother’s first name.

“We’re here, honey. It’ll be online in another ten seconds or so. What’s going on? We saw you run out and grab the captain. Are you hiding somewhere safe?”

She shook her head, fighting through the pain. Ten seconds. What could she do with ten seconds? How high could she fly?

“Hold on,” Ellie said, hoping Cutter could hear her over the din of battle. She might have tried to leave him on the ground—what she was about to do would be very unpleasant for her rider—but the fliers would have shredded him in seconds.

“Hold on?”

“Yeah. This is . . . this is really gonna suck.”

She thrust forward, snatching two fliers out of the air and flinging them, end over end back at their compatriots. It was too tight for evasive maneuvers, and they had the equivalent of a twelve-car pileup before her eyes.

A moment later there was a hole where they’d collided. She dove into it, passing through the opening before they could close up around her. The damaged fliers all recovered and followed as she fled up, up into the sky. Their blasters nibbled at her scales, burning through her natural armor, singeing the soft skin beneath. She ignored them, casting away everything but the need to climb, the need to go as high as possible. Cutter guided her by urging her this way or that. She didn’t want to think about the shape she’d be in without him watching her pursuers.

She considered pausing a moment to hawk another lungful of acid down at the fliers. How high had they flown together? Would any of them survive if their wings suddenly melted away? With each passing second, flying higher and higher, it seemed less likely to Ellie that she’d be able to hold out long enough for Mama and Papa to save her.

“Bringing you up now, honey. Good luck.”

Mama’s voice, speaking through the implant at the base of her skull. It wasn’t supposed to work with anything so mundane as radio transmissions but they’d found a good frequency. Only for “necessary communications,” or so the story went. Hart shouldn’t have been able to listen in, time being what it was. And now? Now, Ellie hoped it didn’t matter. She hoped beyond anything she had a right to hope for that it didn’t matter if he heard them or not.

“I love you guys. Thank you. Ellie out.”

Higher and higher. She had them all coming up under her now. A few overzealous fliers were climbing nearly alongside her now. She could see them struggling to keep up, jerking their wings, hoping to get a shot off.

It wasn’t going to be easy getting them all to the ground in one piece.

“Captain, I’m sorry,” she said, putting on a final burst of speed. “Don’t let go.”

She closed her eyes and left her body behind. It was the space between moments and she knew she was falling out of the sky; knew it intellectually but not through any physical means. If only she was high enough to get back before they hit.

Command subroutines . . . power systems flow . . . okay, let’s see here . . .

Her initial idea, when discussing this plan, had been to kill the power to the soldiers’ armor and let the Market travelers rout them. Papa had pointed out that wasn’t likely to work, especially if there were as many as she’d described. At least some would likely find handheld weapons from the street, and there were enough of them to overwhelm any small force, dragons or otherwise.

“What then, Papa?”

“You’ll never be able to call me ‘Rennie,’ will you?” He’d sighed. “Can you control them, do you think? Order their armor to just march them out the way they came?”

She hit the fliers first, ordering them to fill into a formation and fly right for the Market gate. External sensors and eye-cams confirmed that her orders were being followed; they’d stopped shooting at her and were flying away.